Bible · Psalms

Psalms 58

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1Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation? do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men?2Yea, in heart ye work wickedness; ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth.3The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.4Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear;5Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely.6Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth: break out the great teeth of the young lions, O Lord.7Let them melt away as waters which run continually: when he bendeth his bow to shoot his arrows, let them be as cut in pieces.8As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun.9Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath.10The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.11So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous: verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth.

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Notes for this chapter

Historical Background

Psalm 58 stands among the most confrontational of the imprecatory psalms, and it bears a superscription linking it to David, likely composed during the period when Saul's court was filled with corrupt judges and officials who twisted justice for personal gain or political loyalty. The phrase “Al-taschith” in the Hebrew title, meaning “Do not destroy,” may seem ironic given the fierce content that follows, but it points to a deep trust that God alone is the rightful agent of judgment. David wrote in a world where the Israelite legal system was supposed to reflect divine righteousness, where judges sat as representatives of God Himself. When those judges perverted that sacred trust, it was not merely a civic failure but a theological catastrophe.

The psalm opens with a searing rhetorical challenge directed at these rulers or judges, the Hebrew word “elem” sometimes rendered “congregation” but also understood by many scholars including those behind the Septuagint translation as “gods” or “mighty ones,” meaning those who held divine authority in human courts. Matthew Henry notes that the psalmist is not merely complaining to God in private but confronting the corrupt powers directly, exposing the gap between their pretended righteousness and their actual conduct.

Verses 2 and 3 move from confrontation to diagnosis, and what the psalmist describes is not incidental wrongdoing but wickedness that is deeply rooted in the heart. The phrase “estranged from the womb” has generated significant theological reflection across the centuries. Adam Clarke cautions against reading this as absolute predestination to evil, suggesting instead that it describes the observable pattern of those who, from the earliest stirrings of moral life, consistently chose the path of deception. The Apostle Paul later drew on this psalm in Romans 3, weaving its language into his indictment of universal human sinfulness, and that connection is important.

Paul was not making a point about judicial corruption alone but about the deeper corruption of human nature apart from divine grace. Barnes' Notes emphasizes that “they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies” is a vivid poetic exaggeration meant to capture how natural and habitual falsehood becomes in those who have never submitted their hearts to God. From an Adventist perspective this connects powerfully to Ellen White's consistent teaching in “Patriarchs and Prophets” that sin, once welcomed, deepens its hold on the character until the person becomes practically insensible to the voice of conscience.

Core Teaching

The image of the deaf adder in verses 4 and 5 is drawn from ancient Near Eastern culture where snake charming was a known practice, and the idea of a serpent that has rendered itself immune to the charmer's music would have been immediately recognisable to David's audience as a picture of deliberate, willful resistance to wisdom and counsel. The Jamieson-Fausset-Brown commentary points out that this is not about inability but about chosen deafness. These corrupt judges could hear the law of God and the appeals of justice, but they stopped their ears as deliberately as a serpent coiling away from a charmer's music. The poison imagery connects the corrupt judge to the serpent in Eden, that ancient adversary whose influence infected human society with deceit and self-serving violence.

In the Great Controversy framework, this is a vivid illustration of how Satan's character reproduces itself in those who yield to him fully. What began as a choice becomes a nature, and what was once a temptation becomes a settled disposition. The charmer's voice becomes utterly powerless not because God's truth has lost its power but because the hearer has so thoroughly fortified themselves against it.

Commentary Insights

The imprecatory prayers of verses 6 through 9 have troubled many readers across the centuries, and they deserve honest engagement rather than embarrassment. David calls for God to break the teeth of the wicked, to cause them to melt like water, to dissolve like a snail, to be cut off like an untimely birth. These are not personal revenge fantasies but prayers directed to God as the rightful Judge, asking Him to exercise the authority that corrupt human judges have abdicated. Matthew Henry writes that the righteous soul, seeing wickedness triumph, has no other recourse but to cast the whole matter onto God, and these vivid images of dissolution and powerlessness are prayers that the capacity of the wicked to harm the innocent would be stripped away.

The snail that seems to melt as it moves across a rock, the stillborn child that never sees the sun, the green thorns swept away before they can fuel a fire, these are all images of things that seem to have momentum but are suddenly and completely cut short. The tone is urgent and passionate but ultimately God-directed, which is precisely what distinguishes lament and imprecatory prayer from human vengeance. Ellen White in “Thoughts from the Mount of Blessing” affirms that bringing our deepest anguish to God in honest prayer, even when that anguish takes fierce forms, is far healthier spiritually than suppressing it or acting on it ourselves.

Reflection & Application

The psalm closes in verses 10 and 11 with a scene of vindication that has also troubled interpreters. The righteous washing their feet in the blood of the wicked is a graphic image of battlefield victory drawn from ancient warfare, and while its literal meaning is jarring, its theological point is profound. When justice finally comes, the righteous will recognise it as real, as something that happened in the earth, not merely promised in the afterlife.

Go deeper — references Classic commentaries on this chapter

Matthew Henry's Commentary Matthew Henry (1662–1714) Adam Clarke's Commentary Adam Clarke (1760–1832) Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Jamieson, Fausset & Brown (1871) Barnes' Notes on the Bible Albert Barnes (1798–1870) EGW Writings Ellen G. White Blue Letter Bible Study tools and lexicon

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